Well I received email from Guan (BG7JAA) yesterday. Here is what was said:

" Dear Rich,

We received a threatening email from OM Power's American distributor, he said, if we sell this product in American market, we would have a legal trouble. So we decide to apply for FCC certification first. Thank you for your interest to this product.

Guan, BG7JAA"

Personally I kind of think this is an idle threat, as I do not see how OM Power (A Slovakian Company) would have any legal standing in a United States Court. Since OM Power is Slovakian and the manufacture making the replicas is Chinese, I just hard time believing anything would really come of it, should legal action be attempted in the United States.

I guess the good news out of this is, Guan is proceeding with Type Certification. This would certainly be a step in the right direction, and provide a potential buyer or interested party more confidence in the product.

I guess the good news out of this is, Guan is proceeding with Type Certification. This would certainly be a step in the right direction, and provide a potential buyer or interested party more confidence in the product.

Rich

A step in the right direction, would be to remove the modified OM Power's logo from the front panel, and to design a front panel and amplifier that is unique and original.

It will be a pleasure to see more competition on the market to move out the typical junk makers and give us more options at reasonable cost but maintain a quality product that actually works when you receive it. I see many companies that are starting to corner the market.

I have already emailed them and asked who will be the US rep's and when...

I guess the good news out of this is, Guan is proceeding with Type Certification. This would certainly be a step in the right direction, and provide a potential buyer or interested party more confidence in the product.

Rich

A step in the right direction, would be to remove the modified OM Power's logo from the front panel, and to design a front panel and amplifier that is unique and original.

73

The LOGO was tad over the top, and to be honest I thought what I was looking at was a true OM Power amplifier until I noticed the difference in the model number.

The Chinese OM Power Copy is similar to what another manufacture did when making the PUMA line amplifiers. The PUMA PL-6K I have here at the station, remind me of a Henry but was made in the Far East, somewhere. The one I own was modified to run on 40M only and I have been gathering the parts to restore it to a multiband amplifier. Despite the fact it was an obvious attempt to mimic a Henry amplifier; it is incredibly well built, and has provided many years of fairly reliable service in a very demanding contest environment.

While I am not sure where in the Far East this amplifier came from, I did find one website of an individual who restored the PL-3K version of this amplifier (http://www.bear-el.com/pl3k/), not sure what this page is trying to say exactly, but from the pictures you can see it looks pretty close to a Henry! I guess this makes me a little less skeptic than other about amplifiers coming in from China!

I think that there could be a market for an American designed but Chinese built amplifier. Amplifiers are getting hideously expensive and I don't see a problem of the Chinese building amplifiers as long as it's not a stolen design. Taiwan already has a big market of contract manufacturers and it could be another option. Have you ever opened up a LDG tuner and compare it against a naked MFJ tuner? It's like night and day.

If you cant afford a very good amplifier build it yourself. If you cant afford a decent amplifier you can build one that will outperform and outlast any ham commercial amplifier.

The Chinese tube industry is in the same position as the Russian tube makers. The market is small and there is not much demand. So who knows what the availability of these Chinese tubes will be in the future.

At least if you use a tube thats widely used in industry like the 8877, you have a good chance of finding and buying one. Who in the west uses FU728's? Answer nobody.The moment these Chinese Amps hit the USA market the price of the tubes will skyrocket. The Chinese are also price gouging on what they charge for their amps. Is it coincidence thatChinese amps are priced virtually identical to the OMPOWER pricing. They making a absolute killing. Last time I looked the Emtron Amplifiers from Australia were selling for a cheaper price than these Chinese Amps.

The days of tubes amplifiers are fast coming to the end. 2kW solid state amps will be the norm in the next 2 years. Why would you tool up for something thats going to be obsolete?Besides the bottom line with anything Chinese is that it is Cheap Junk, despite what other say about the quality improving sometime in the future.If you look at the lathe market the same thing has happened. Chinese lathes flooding the market. Despite years of manufacture the chinese lathes are nowhere as good as the lathes that were manufacturedin Europe and the USA. There is always some problems with the Chinese lathe quality and design, they poor quality with lots of bigs. Thats junk in my book.

I would rather send my money to Slovakia and support a company that made a sincere effort to design and build decent amplifiers for the ham market. Why would anyone want to support these Chinese knock off crooks is beyond belief. Its amusing to read that so many Americans are so pro anything thats cheap. I wonder how many of them actually realize how the Chinese are really destroying their economic might by destroying the manufacturing base in the USA. Very soon the USA will have no manufacturing industry and everyone in the USAwill be consumers of Chinese manufactured goods. I wonder who is going to be the Sheriff of the world when you can afford to be one because your manufacturing base is gone offshore? So much for patriotism.

I think that there could be a market for an American designed but Chinese built amplifier. Amplifiers are getting hideously expensive and I don't see a problem of the Chinese building amplifiers as long as it's not a stolen design. Taiwan already has a big market of contract manufacturers and it could be another option. Have you ever opened up a LDG tuner and compare it against a naked MFJ tuner? It's like night and day.

Is it coincidence thatChinese amps are priced virtually identical to the OMPOWER pricing. They making a absolute killing. Last time I looked the Emtron Amplifiers from Australia were selling for a cheaper price than these Chinese Amps.

Where are you getting your pricing from? The advertised price for these amplifiers is far less than OM Power, and Alpha. At the current exchange rate it appears as though the subject amplifier is $3700.00 USD for the Automatic, and $2580.00 for the manual version. I have not looked at EMTRON pricing, thus I cannot comment if EMTRON is in fact less expensive or on par with the above mentioned prices.

In the article N2TX, who apparently was the author, claims he knew and called one of the technicians, or something to that effect. I was more interested in the pictures to be honest, as the text really did not say much other than the amplfier seemed to last an entire contest.

I did find a ton of pictures in addtion to the two links provided which can be found here:

Wow, it looks very impressive and meticulous attention to detail. May give Ameritron the run for the money and may even better Tokyo Hy-Power. All said, no thanks. I bought American Made and will keep my Elecraft KPA500 (I know that some or all of the components may be made in china).

Actually, it appears as though they have decided to change the LOGO, and now have incorporated a TFT display! Take another look at the website, you will see a marked difference in the front panel from a week ago!

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